


Crossroads and Thresholds

by bygoshbygolly



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Gen, Magic, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 20:28:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8910859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bygoshbygolly/pseuds/bygoshbygolly
Summary: Emma Pole has avoided sleep and magic as much as possible for many years. One night, she cannot hold them both back, and she finds herself reunited with an old acquaintance.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prodigy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prodigy/gifts).



Emma Pole did not often sleep. She had spent far too much of her life in slumber, trapped dancing in dreams. Freed from the Gentleman and his magic, she found that she was ruined now, for dreams and dancing both. She did not attend parties, unless she could be sure she would not be required to dance. Most nights, she would stay up with some activity or other until she could no longer, and woke as soon as she could manage. 

There were tonics, she knew, that promised dreamless sleep. For a time she had tried them, one after the other. Most of them spoke true, and her mind and body both remained in one place during the night. Too often, though, they made her feel drowsy and weak, before true sleep claimed her, trapped on the threshold between sleeping and wakefulness. She was reminded of her earlier life, when she was too ill to do the things she wished, and so she stopped taking the tonics, and instead filled her days with activity. Exhaustion was the best guard against dreams, though it, too, was imperfect.

There was so much to see and do, now that she was free. Free from the Gentleman, free from her husband, free from her mother, free from illness. Her life was her own, and she was determined to see and do all that she could. She would travel Europe, staying in each place as long or as little as she pleased. She would learn languages and visit museums and study the stars.

But she would not sleep, and she would not touch magic. She had had her fill of both.

 

She knew this place. Oh, it was lighter now, and empty of dancers, but she would know this place anywhere. It haunted her still, nearly two decades later, and likely would for the rest of her days. She could almost hear the faerie music now, almost feel the gentle pressure of a hand at her waist. Already her feet ached.

Her breath came shorter and faster, and she struggled to make it even. She fought down the scream of anger and despair rising in her throat. She wrapped her arms around her stomach in a futile attempt to get rid of the cold fear that had settled there. She would not break. The Gentleman was gone. He was gone, and she was free. 

She was _supposed_ to be free. And yet here she was, in Lost Hope once more.

A movement at the top of the stairs caught her eye, and she looked up, tense.

There was a man at the top of the stairs, dark-skinned and richly dressed. He looked surprised to see her there, but she was not surprised to see him. Of course he would be in Lost Hope as well. Her companion in captivity.

“Stephen?” she asked. Her voice sounded small in the large room. The man—Stephen, of course it was Stephen, she would know him anywhere, but especially here—looked even more surprised. “Stephen, what are we doing here?”

“I am sorry, my lady,” he replied. “I am afraid that you must be mistaken. That is not my name.” She stared in horror. Had some fae spell made him forget his own name? She supposed she looked rather different now, nearly twenty years after last they had seen one another, which might go some way to explaining why he did not recognize her. Her hair was streaked with silver and her eyes now had permanent shadows under them from lack of sleep. Stephen, on the other hand, looked much the same as ever, excepting the richness and color of his clothes, and, she now noticed, that he wore a silver circlet upon his brow.

He came down the stairs and bowed to her, courteous as ever.

“I am the King of Lost Hope,” he said. “May I have the honor of knowing your name?”

“Stephen, it’s me,” she pleaded. There was no comprehension in his eyes. “It’s Emma! Emma Pole!” He froze.

“Emma…?” his voice was faraway. His gaze sharpened. “Lady Pole?”

“Yes.” She sighed in relief. “I am Lady Pole. And you are Stephen Black.”

“That is _not_ my name,” he repeated coldly. She flinched, and his gaze softened. “It may have been, once. Yes…I remember. There was a time where I went by the name Stephen Black. I was powerless, then. I had almost forgotten.” He smiled. “Thank you for reminding me, Lady Pole. This place can play with one’s memories, but a king should never forget his own past.”

“Who- Who are you now, then?” Emma asked. “If you are truly no longer Stephen Black?”

“As I said, my lady, I am the King of Lost Hope.” She took a shuddery breath, then let it out and set her jaw. So Stephen had changed, too, in the years she had seen him last. Where she had shunned magic, he had embraced it.

“I see. So you have become like _him_.” She spat the last word. He flinched, and his eyes went hard.

“Never, my lady.” His voice was harsh. “Each time I wake I thank all the powers that be that my dreams were free of him. I have worked long and hard to scrub all traces of that creature from my kingdom. This is a good place now, a just place.” He swept out an arm, indicating the empty room they stood in, with its peculiar atmosphere of well-kept disuse. “There are no balls here, my lady.”

“How am I supposed to believe you? You say you are grateful to be free of him, yet you claim you do not remember being powerless? Nor your own name? You say you strive to distance yourself from him, and yet you rule his land and steal innocents just as he did.”

“I have stolen no one— “

“Then how am I here, Stephen?” Tears pricked at her eyes and she shook with anger. “Why am I back here, in my nightmares? I thought I had left this place behind. It haunts me, Stephen. I don’t sleep for the fear of that man and this place.”

“Truly, Lady Pole, I do not know,” he replied. His voice was gentle and his face sad, his composure returned to him. “You are the first dreamer to come to Lost Hope during my reign. I would not welcome others. I do not, if you will forgive me for saying so, welcome _you_. If you allow it, I shall send you back to your home.” She was silent a moment, then her anger dissipated and she slumped.

“Please,” she said. “Please send me back, Stephen.”

“Of course,” he replied. He strode to the side of the ballroom and opened a door. Her parlor lay on the other side, the fire low. As she stood on the threshold, he nodded at her. “It was good to see you again, Lady Pole.” She smiled wanly, and, as she could not say the same, said nothing.

Emma was about to cross back into her rooms when the King of Lost Hope sucked in a quiet breath and reached a hand towards her, pulling it back at the last moment. She flinched.

“Forgive me, my lady. I did not mean to startle you.” She looked at him, half fearful. “It is only that I see now why you were returned to Lost Hope. It is,” his hands flexed and his lips tightened momentarily, “a remnant of the Gentleman’s magic. Those who broke his enchantment had power, but were amateurs, and his hold on you was not cleanly severed. There are still fragments of his magic embedded within you, and they call out to this place, where he lived for so long. They are what drew you back here. If you will permit it, I would remove those fragments.”

“Yes.” Emma stepped back from the door. “I will permit it. I _demand_ it.” Angry tears pricked at her eyes once more at the thought of having lived with the Gentleman’s magic inside her for so long. She had never been free of him, not truly. The thought chilled her.

“Careful, my lady,” the King of Lost Hope replied quietly. His eyes gleamed, and for a moment Emma could not tell whether the light in them came from within or without. “I left England to avoid such words as you just spoke. I will remove the Gentleman’s magic, for my kingdom’s sake as well as for the sake of the memory of our shared enchantment, but I am king here, and I will not be ordered about.”

She stared at him. After a moment, she nodded.

“Forgive me. It is the fear of his magic that caused me to speak so rashly.” 

“Of course.” The King’s voice was as stiff and formal as hers had been. He turned a hand outward, and the candles around the hall brightened. He stepped closer to her, and she fought to remain calm and still, to not shrink back. He stared down into her face, very close, but his gaze was so impersonal that Emma did not feel the self-consciousness that ordinarily would have arisen from such a situation.

Silence fell over the hall. The King of Lost Hope ceased his staring and instead closed his eyes, a faint wrinkle at his brow indicating concentration. Emma saw his fingers fluttering by his sides, and was reminded of the games of Cat’s Cradle she had played as a child. A thought struck her as she watched him.

“Why did you come back, Stephen?” she murmured, half to herself. His eyes opened. “Of all places, why here?”

“It needed me,” he replied, just as quietly. “My arrival here was foretold, and I could not leave it unattended; not when there was so much to be done. Besides,” he continued, a wry smile crossing his face, “I was as finished with England as it was finished with me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I do not expect you to, my lady.” He made a small noise of triumph. “There. If you would place your hands upon your heart…?” Emma bit her lip but complied, caught between eagerness to have the spell removed and wariness at having magic once more done to her. “Thank you.”

The King of Lost Hope pinched the fingers of his right hand together, level with her chest. Their tips brushed the backs of her hands ever so slightly. He made a twisting motion and she felt something within her tighten. He pulled his hand back sharply, and she gasped as a feeling like a knife cut across her heart, the back of her neck, her littlest finger.

“There,” the King said, satisfaction on his face. He stepped back. “I am sorry I could not do it without some pain, but there is no magic in you anymore.”

Emma had expected to feel different. Lighter, perhaps, or more herself. But she only felt tired.

“Thank you,” she said. “Now, I wish to go home.”

“Of course.” He gestured towards the door. “If you do not mind me saying, my lady, I hope we do not meet again.”

“As do I.” She smiled, wanly, and crossed over from Lost Hope to Switzerland, the door closing behind her.

 

She slept easily that night, for the first time she could remember.


End file.
